a3Genealogy - Accurate, Accessible Answers - specializes in military, naturalization records, Native American and African American ancestry. The a3Gen blog is penned by Kathleen Brandt, an international genealogy consultant, speaker and writer. a3Gen clients span from Europe, Asia and Africa to the Americas.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Steps to Tracking Slave Masters

I was recently asked "where did the slave masters come from in order to
settle in Missouri?" The answer is many of the Missouri slave owners came
from Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

The largest slave holding counties were around Saline County: Boone, Manitou,
Howard, Chariton, Cooper, Clay, Ray, and
Lafayette counties. These counties are within 90 miles of one another and nicknamed
Little Dixie. Researchers will quickly learn that if you find an ancestor in
one, it will behoove you to expand your research to include the other counties.

Why did Plantation Owners Move to Missouri?

The Missouri land was ready for cultivation of familiar
crops - hemp and tobacco. Even the transplant planters familiar with cotton growing
knew that growing hemp and tobacco was similar and required an easy transition
with the work of slaves. Eighteen percent (18%) of Missouri’s hemp crop was cultivated
in Saline County (before 1861).

Even if you have a Mississippi ancestor, finding ties to
Saline County Missouri may be found in agricultural records. Did you know that
Missouri shipments, mostly from Claiborne Fox Jackson’s company in Saline
County, shipped commodities - hemp,
corn, oats, salt, pork, beef – to Natchez Mississippi to feed the cotton field
slaves?

Finding Slave Master
Records

Did you know your slave master ancestor is named in every court record and many vital records of his slaves before the Civil War, and many after emancipation?

Descendants of slaves know, too well, that researching
their ancestors involve thorough slave master research. However, the same applies
when researching slave masters. The sale
of a slave of his family is noted in the deeds of the slave masters. Ship
manifests transporting slaves often name the slave-master. After the civil-war,
ex-slave documents, including ex-slave Civil War pension records, legalization
of slave marriages and other freedman bureau records, usually names the
ex-slave master and his place of origin. We can often determine slave master
whereabouts after the Civil War using these records. Ex-slave masters were directly
tied to ex-slaves and their identities for years following the Civil War.

I'm struck by your final comment: "Ex-slave masters were directly tied to ex-slaves and their identities for years following the Civil War." I've got to get busy with the court records of the ex-slave masters among my ancestors . . . as soon as I get straight the lines of these ancestors, and who "willed" which slaves to whom... then I can do the deeds for sales of "property" (such an outrageous time in history, geez!).

And thanks, I never considered that slave owners moved from the Carolinas to Missouri. Good point! Some of my surname moved to Alabama and Texas and Georgia in the early 1800s, it seems. I'll never track them all down. But hey, that's OK.